236 Mr. Shaw on the Facial Nerves. 



Menagerie in Exeter Change. The effect was immediate ; his 

 power of expression being destroyed on one side. When 

 he was irritated, he snarled and showed his teeth on the right 

 side only. During the first month, he could not shut the 

 left eye, but of late, though he is able to close the eye, he has 

 so little power over the motions of the eyelid, that when he is 

 attacked with a stick, the orbicularis muscle appears to become 

 so convulsed as to render the eye useless. He then seems to 

 avoid winking with the other eye, that he may be on his guard. 



The effect of injury to this nerve is more distinctly shewn on 

 the human face. In the case of a little girl, which will be par- 

 ticularly related in another paper, the consequence of disease 

 of the right Porlio Dura is very striking. When she laughs 

 heartily, the right cheek and the same side of the mouth are 

 unmoved, while the muscles of the leftside are convulsed with 

 laughter. 



If told to endeavour to laugh with the right side, she raises 

 the angle of the mouth, but by an action which is evidently 

 regulated by the branches of the Vth. nerve. This attempt to 

 laugh gives a peculiarly droll expression to her face, and I 

 think it is the same action which amuses us so much in the face 

 of the famous mimick, who invites the public to see him at home 

 every spring. 



After having made the experiments on the Portio Dura of 

 several animals, and observed the effect upon the human coun- 

 tenance, where the nerve had been injured, I was so much struck 

 with the resemblance in the action of some of the muscles, to 

 those of the actor alluded to, that I went to the Theatre to 

 observe the expression of his face. Although there were evi- 

 dent marks of paralysis of the Portio Dura, there was a con- 

 siderable degree of expression exhibited on the same side, for 

 which I could not at the time account. It, however, appears to 

 be now explained by the state of the little girl's cheek, for when 

 she attempts to laugh with the right side, the expression is so 

 similar, that it almost amounts to a proof that this performer 

 has, by practice, gained such a power over the actions regulated 

 by the Vth., as to be able to bring them into a state similar to 



